aprile 04, 2017 - Honda Racing

Encouraging official test draws to a close for Bradl and Hayden

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The Red Bull #honda World Superbike Team has joined the rest of the #worldsbk field today for one more day on track as the second official test of the year was carried out at MotorLand Aragón. #nickyhayden and #stefanbradl were able to make the most of the 8 hours of track-time available with some interesting results in terms of speed on the single lap as well as consistency on the long runs.

Blessed by glorious weather and with no wind blowing across the 5.4km Spanish circuit, the two riders were able to complete a considerable amount of laps while working on different settings for their #honda#cbr1000rr Fireblade SP2 machines and new spec-tyres provided by Pirelli.

Bradl and his crew continue to evaluate different geometry, weight distribution and suspensions settings to improve turning and tyre consumption. The 27-year-old German logged a personal best lap of 1’50.685s, which was 0.3s faster than the one he set with race tyres in Superpole 1 last Saturday.

There were similar goals but a different approach for Hayden, who made some steps forward in terms of feeling with the front end of the bike and engine braking, as well as some consistency on the long runs. In the afternoon, the 35-year-old American broke through the 1’51s barrier as he logged a 1’50.837s time in the final hour of action.

The team will now return to their headquarters in Nieuwleusen in the Netherlands, in order to evaluate the data and prepare for a two-day private test at Portimão’s Autodromo do Algarve, which takes place in a fortnight’s time.

Stefan Bradl

74 laps / 1'50.685It’s been a long day at the office! The weather conditions were perfect and that allowed us to do a lot of laps. We mainly focused on the bike geometry and suspensions setttings, because we had to improve our pace. We found slightly more grip on the rear, which gave us the opportunity to be consistently faster in our almost full race simulation. I did lap faster compared to the two races here, so that’s a positive point. We also improved the front-end of the bike a little, so that we’re not stressing the front tyre too much. Overall we made a small step forward but surely there’s a lot more work to do, that’s why I’m looking forward to the Portimão test in two weeks. Nicky Hayden

69 laps / 1’50.837

It was good to have a full day of riding the bike in such perfect conditions after yesterday’s early retirement from the race. It’s been a useful day, especially after six individual races with no testing in between. We mainly worked with the general setup of the bike, trying some basic changes and I felt better. Our lap-times improved very little; surely some more improvement in that department would have been good. The guys have worked really hard, especially as some of the changes to the geometry we made took quite a bit of time. We wanted to try some new tyres at the end of the day but we had a couple of technical problems, which we thought we had sorted out after Thailand. Overall, though, I’m quite positive with how today went.

Pieter Breddels

It was a much-needed test, especially given how things have gone during the weekend. We were able to do a great amount of work that wouldn’t have been possible to do during the round itself. We improved the bike setup with both riders: with Stefan we tried different setup combinations with geometry, weight distribution and suspensions settings and we found some more grip. We did a long run in the end and the times were not bad. We improved the engine braking with both riders and did some more work on the electronics with Nicky. We also tried a new gearbox, which worked better for him. We have a lot of data now and a couple of weeks before Portimão, which will give us a chance to try some new material.